


The Belly of the Beast

by joudama



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Hannigram - Freeform, I don’t know where this is going, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2019-09-28 09:05:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17180042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joudama/pseuds/joudama
Summary: Hannibal will not dienow.And he will not letWilldie now.Not now that Will has finally begun to emerge from his chrysalis.





	1. The Fall

**Author's Note:**

> This is set right at the end of the final episode.
> 
> Bryan Fuller has said they survive; this story is about _how_.

We are falling, but I have no intention of dying. Not yet at any rate. I will admit, for a moment, I considered it, letting Will have his way in this one thing...it would be a beautiful ending; an operatic end is a fitting one. Let Will's Tosca carry my Scarpia over the edge.

But I am not Scarpia; Will is not Tosca. There will be no meeting before God, not yet. The lamb has become the lion, and he must taste his magnificence.

Besides, I have never much cared for Puccini and his "shabby little shockers."

The waters are deep; rocky, but deep, and while the height is perilous, it is not insurmountable. Cliff divers have jumped from greater heights, but I have little time and only a small margin of error.

When one dives from a high cliff, speed and water tension means that water is little softer than concrete. In order to survive, you must break that tension before your body hits, or at the very least transfer the potential damage to less sensitive and vital areas. Olympic divers break that tension with their hands, but cliff divers hit the water feet first, and if we are to have a chance, it is what we must do.

There is time. Little, but enough. Will is still clinging to me, but as he pushed us over, so will I push us as we need to go. He needed to do this, one last fight against his nature. I will forgive him this, and I have forgiven him everything, in the end. He has fought so bravely, against becoming the Lion. But one's nature can not be denied, and now that he has seen it, I will not let him snuff it out; he must reach his full potential, and I will guide him there as surely as I guide us now into a survivable position.

He needed to kill us; I need to save us. I cannot hold the last gasp of the Lamb against becoming the Lion against him.

Our luck holds; we land in an area of water deep enough and with few rocks, but the danger is not past. We must make it to the surface and then back up to land. Will has lost blood; a lot of it, and I have been shot. We can not go to hospital; I will not allow Will to slip from my grasp again. I will not risk allowing Jack Crawford to force him back into being his lamb, not now that Will has finally come into his own.

I will not die now.

And I will not let _him_ die now.

Not now that he has finally begun to emerge from the chrysalis in which he slumbered inchoate for so long.

And not now that he has...not _now_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I kinda started this years ago, after the series finale, then fell out of writing and forgot about it. Then I did a rewatch while I was getting a friend into it, and remembered this after we saw the finale. I let her read it, she said I should write more of it, and I figured...well, why not? So I did a bit of editing, did a bit of cleaning up and writing to round this first part out, and here you go.
> 
> Also, I’m slightly disturbed at how easy it is for me to write Hannibal in first person. Erm... ^^;


	2. Things Within Your Grasp

I do not need to open my eyes to feel when someone leans over me.

_「まだ生きていますか？」_  
_Are you still alive?_

Chiyoh, polite as always. I suppose I should wonder how she has found me, but I find that I do not. Sometimes it is better not to ask, after all. And I know no matter how she has found us, however, the Dragon found us, she will will cover the trail.

_「まで生きています」 _I reply, without opening my eyes.__  
_I'm still alive._

My Japanese has grown rusty, I fear, and I can still hear my own accent. My aunt tried very hard to improve it, but it remained. Still, I return courtesy with courtesy.

_「彼奴は？」_ Chiyoh spits out, and I open my eyes just in time to see the sharp, angry look she shoots at Will.  It is probably good he's not conscious to see it.

Perhaps...she is not always so polite. Will certainly has a knack for bringing out the unexpected in others, myself among them. What Chiyoh has just said is certainly not polite, but I find I can forgive her transgression.

_「まで生きています」_ I repeat, but I am fighting a smile. _「必要けど手に入らない物がありますよ。取って頂けませんか？」_  
_There are things that I need but can not get. Will you get them for me?_

She nods once, short and curt, and reaches out a hand to help me to my feet. Will is dazed and only semi-conscious; he has lost more blood than he should have, breathed in too much water, and may have struck his head from the way he seems concussed. 

But when I pull him up, he clings to me, as tightly as he did when he threw us over, and only knowing that Chiyoh watches keeps me from clinging back as long as I would like; keeps me from relishing in having something that had always seemed maddeningly out of reach finally within my grasp. 

I have waited for this; I can wait a little more. 

My Japanese is rusty; I despair for what has become of my grammar and there are things I need that I no longer remember the words for, leaving me forced to switch to English as we struggle upwards. "I will need blood if possible, AB and A. If not, plasma will do in a pinch. I will also require nutrient IVs, oral and intervenous antibiotics and colonoscopy bags." Everything else I need, I have - this house has been one of my safe houses for years; it is well-stocked, but we will not be able to stay here long, and some things can not be stored indefinitely, while others I could not have foreseen. "The sooner the better, with the blood." I have other places that I can take us, but first, I must get us able to travel there. 

Chiyoh nods, but is silent until we come to the top of the cliffs. It takes us far too long, and Will is far too pale. The world is going rather gray around the edges for myself, and it is only force of will that keeps me from giving into it. There is too much to do now, and a rest risks turning eternal. 

“I will keep them from caging you again,” Chiyoh finally says, as we get Will into the house, and she sees the damage that has been done there. “Even though it was _you_ who put yourself in the cage.” 

Chiyoh turns and leaves, as silently as a hunter such as herself would. 

My aunt taught her well. 

And when I have seen to myself and to Will, I will see to the Dragon. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a few explainers. First off, the Japanese - Hannibal says that Chiyoh is being polite - which she is, by using the -ます form of the verbs. I thought about having her go full keigo (super polite Japanese speech), but honestly, keigo is a pain and nobody likes using keigo. However, the main thing is her change when she refers to Will - 彼奴は？ is literally "And him?" but she says a rather...impolite word for "him."
> 
> Also, a way to say “can’t get” in Japanese is 手に入らない, which means “can’t get in your hand.” I had Hannibal use that expression, and it ties in with how he sees Will as finallhy within his grasp.
> 
> I made Will AB blood type because if you know anything about the Asian blood type personality thing, AB indicates a conflicted nature, where one's A tendencies and B tendencies are at war with each other. If that doesn't describe Will...


	3. Mirror Image

I have staunched Will's bleeding, but he is still far too pale and his breathing is a touch more shallow than I would like. And I know that I will need blood for what I must do to care for myself. Now that he is more stable, I can turn to myself to assess the damage.

There was a Russian man named Leopid Rogozov.  He was a doctor, and was the only one stationed at his base in the Antarctic. This was not an uncommon thing, but a rather unfortunate one for him when his appendix grew infected during a blizzard.

He did what one must in such a situation. He cut out his own appendix.

This will perhaps be a...touch more delicate.

A mirror assists me for now, as it did our unfortunate Dr. Rogozov, for all it is frustrating to have everything inverse. But it reminds me of my residency days, of a rare, one in ten thousand person with situs inversus totalis, a total reversal of the position of the internal viscera. Instead of the heart being on the left, it is on the right. Instead of the appendix being on the right, it is on the left. A burst appendix had brought the young woman in to the hospital that day, and an unknown case of situs inversus totalis was what had made her so devilishly tricky to diagnose, and the surgery a touch tricky.

It would seem appendixes are a common thread in my thoughts today.

I push these meddlesome remembrances away for now, as this is not the time.

I can tell that I have been more fortunate this evening that I have any right to be - an abdominal wound such as this would normally be, if not fatal without immediate treatment, extremely dangerous. Often if the wound does not kill, infection does. Had the bullet torn internal organs, my belly would be awash with its own fluids, and an unpleasant death all but certain without a long hospitalization, something I can not risk now.

I will not allow myself to be caged again.

I return to the task at hand. For all there is pain, I do not see any ripped organs. I do believe that the Dragon's shot slipped neatly between the curves and folds of my intestines, rather than through the delicate organs themselves. It is a relatively clean wound. I can take no chances, and once Chiyoh returns I will have her assist.

I tape my belly shut for now. Trying to do more would do more harm than good. There is nothing more I can do for myself now, and I find myself fretful. I should move as little as possible, and yet...

I want to see Will.

And I will not deny myself this, or anything else when it comes to him.

Not any more.

I pull myself up to my feet and walk over to his side.

He rouses when I sit next to him. His eyes are bleary, but there is also a clarity in them that fills me with a rare emotion: hope.

"Hello, Will."

"Hello, Hannibal," he says, and smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was far closer than I’d realized to being done, so I figured hey, let’s keep the ball rolling of me putting up fic updates!


End file.
